At the end of this workshop you will have a better understanding of what goes into making your author website more appealing and inviting to a visitor and thus more effective for promoting you and your work. This two-week workshop will cover the golden ratio of layout design, web fonts and web-safe colors, using white space, user interface considerations and website organization, web graphics for the artistically challenged, and the importance of testing websites with multiple operating systems and browser applications.

Workshop Description: There's nothing more frustrating than wasting your precious writing time on a futile web search. Whether you are looking for a specific piece of information or need to research an entire time period or subject, this class will help you conduct the best search for your information needs. You will learn how to utilize multiple online search resources, including search engines, web directories, and databases. You will also learn how to refine search terms, narrow or broaden your search, how to use Boolean logic, and many other tips and techniques to make your research more efficient and successful. (Click link for full course description)

Writing romantic suspense should be easy, right? Take some romance, add some suspense, and voila! Except...not really. To stand out in this crowded genre you need to plot every step as carefully as your killer plots his next murder, and your couple's relationship has to be as romantic as Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton. This course will start with the basics and go deep, preparing you to write a romantic suspense novel that makes readers stay up nights reading.

Humans exist in varying states of anxiety allowing for survival. This writing
workshop of lecture and writing exercises will teach you how to identify stress
and coping mechanisms in fictional characters that will create a marketable
short story or novel. From envisioning those dynamic, vivid characters to
screwing up a “normal day,” your creativity will be challenged through brief
exercises and class discussions.

Stories about vampires can be found virtually all over the
world, in many places and ways you may not expect. The names may change and even
some of what vamps can do, but whatever you call them, the legends about
vampires have long been a part of human history. Let's look at those myths
around the world following the Silk Road, that series of routes that was
integral to traders long before the Christian era began. (Click link for full course description)